


Billionth Man

by Xparrot



Category: GetBackers
Genre: Fluff, Hugs, M/M, Present Tense, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-18
Updated: 2006-03-18
Packaged: 2017-10-10 20:13:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/103823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xparrot/pseuds/Xparrot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>BanGin sap, with gratuitous Kipling quoting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Billionth Man

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for [gratuitous Kipling quoting.](http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_thousandth.htm)

It's not that Ban doesn't like Ginji's hugs. From the first time Ginji threw his arms around Ban's chest and squeezed, less electric eel, more boa constrictor. Of course Ban beats his partner off, clobbers him over the head to calm him down. He's got an image to maintain. They've got an image to maintain, consummate professionals, and let's face it, their professionalism can use as much support as it can get. Besides, Ban is partial to the act of breathing.

But he likes the hugging, for all he protests; needs it, from that first time, when it filled something in him that he didn't know was empty, a Ginji-shaped space between his arms that was always aching without him even realizing it.

He needs it, but it's not enough.

He's hardly the only one who Ginji tackles with such recklessly heartfelt abandon, after all. Friends, enemies (who have become friends by then, because resisting that idiotic blond sincerity takes more strength than in pretty much any man they've met)—and Ban's not the only one who aches from those empty spaces. Not the only one who needs, as much as he does or more.

Ban doesn't even mind seeing it; the way Ginji throws himself at people is one of the things that makes him so indubitably _Ginji_, and Ban can admit in the privacy of his own self that watching Ginji being Ginji is one of his favorite things to do in the world. (His favorite thing, but even in that privacy he can only admit so much.)

But every time he witnesses Ginji embrace a friend or an opponent or a stranger, something inside him twists. Not that he fears for Ginji; he knows his partner's power. Not even that he wants it himself, because all he has to do is open his arms, for Ginji to fly into them. Open himself, and Ginji would fly in.

But it's not enough, and that's Ban's fault, not Ginji's. Ban's fault, for being too late. By the time he entered Mugenjou, Raitei's four kings had already sworn themselves to die for him. The second time they entered Mugenjou, Makubex promised Ginji to live for him. So now there's nothing left in between for Ban to say.

And he wants to be able to say it, wants to be able to tell his partner, because Ginji is his first, is the first. Ban had friends before, but this he's never known, what it's like to understand that whether he wins or loses, succeeds or fails, he'll still have a partner. With Eris, with Maria, with Yamato and Himiko, he never felt this bedrock certainty. Ban's never felt anything like it before, that they can fight, and not shake it; that they can become monsters, and yet change nothing. That Ban can curse him, turn his back and walk away, and be absolutely sure that Ginji will follow him all the same.

Follow him anywhere, to the ends of the world, and that should be enough, but Ginji is the first of everything, and Ban is selfish. Ban would follow Ginji past those ends—_to the gallows-foot, and after_, but Ban doesn't want to be Ginji's thousandth man. Raitei's four kings, the new lords of Mugenjou, the rest of them—they're all one in a thousand and it's not enough. Not even to be his millionth man. His billionth. Ginji is one of a kind, of all the world. And Ban wants to be first.

But maybe that's impossible anyway; impossible to ever be number one, when there's always two. The 's' of GetBackers means that neither of them is to be a single man, a man alone—he first told Ginji so, but Ginji is the one who reminds him of it, again and again, like he realizes Ban needs to hear it. Needs to keep hearing it until finally someday he'll actually listen, actually understand, that Ginji can only say that to him. Will only ever say it to him.

And that, that will be enough.


End file.
